The Christian church of Egypt, with dioceses elsewhere in Africa and the Near East, having a liturgy in Coptic and a Monophysite doctrine. a Christian religious group that is separate from the Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox churches, and was formed in Egypt in the 1st century AD. Although most Egyptians are Muslims, there is a small number of Coptic Christians
Since the 7th century the Coptic Church has been so isolated from modifying influences that in many respects it is the most ancient monument of primitive Christian rites and ceremonies
The native church of Egypt or church of Alexandria, which in general organization and doctrines resembles the Roman Catholic Church, except that it holds to the Monophysitic doctrine which was condemned a
Principal Christian church in Egypt. Until the 19th century it was called simply the Egyptian Church. It agrees doctrinally with Eastern Orthodoxy except that it holds that Jesus has a purely divine nature and never became human, a belief the Council of Chalcedon rejected (see Monophysite heresy) in AD 451. After the Arab conquest (7th century), service books were written with Coptic and Arabic in parallel texts. Church government is democratic, and the patriarch, who resides in Cairo, is elected. There are congregations outside Egypt, especially in Australia and the U.S., and the church is in communion with the Ethiopian, Armenian, and Syrian Jacobite churches